St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-03-04
THE VIRGINIA GIRL.
A Glowing Picture of a Really
Adorable Creature.

|
Louisville Times.
But it was not of the state, or her glori-
Gus history, or her heroic sacrifices, or her
matchless sages and warriors that " ish to
speak, but of the Virginia girl as she is now
and as her mother and grandmother were
before her. She is fitted by nature ant
trained by education to be the wife of Q
strong and brave man and mother of sturdy
BOYS and virtuous girls. She is not made
up of watery elements, though her ''voice
is very soft, gentle and low, an excellent
thing in woman" She says ''father'' and
mother in dutiful tones, and yester- might,
when, like the Lady Christabel,
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
Ard lay down in her loneliness,
she said "0ur Father Who art in Heaven
reverently, confidingly and trustfully. A
Christian she is, with no more doubt of her
faith than that the sun shines. Chaste she
| is, without knowledge or suspicion of evil.
| Simple she is, and ignorant and Needless of
| the great world, where wealth and position
are the guinea stamps that makes effulgent
hearts as false and as black as hell, and
when she marries. as marry she will, "she
will do her husband good and not evil all
the days of her life" and her children
will rise up and call her blessed
AS | sat opposite her at the table, eating
delicious food her fair hands had prepared,
and met the clear, honest look of her fine
eye, hazel and slightly humid, teaching
more beauty than all authors. and attended
to the gentle sounds her ripe lips uttered as
the words came from them. like roses fell
from the lips of Angelo" l thought of til e
time when Isaac first beheld Rebecca and
when Boaz fell in love with Ruth, who, I
believe, was widow and not maiden. At
least she had a mother-in-law.
l have said she was not made up of
Watery elements. Slender she is, with the
correct line of beauty, 1.-the and graceful,
but she would kick the beam at near ten
stone. and with arms like AurOra's, she re-
minded me of Byron's lines:
I've seen more living beauty, ride and real,
Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal.
Her hand is not exactly small. for it has
welded the rolling-pin, but st. Anthony
might say about it, if the circumstances
warranted:
The pretty hand outside her muff,
o, sculptor, il you could but mold it,
So lightly touchedsby jackets cuff,
To keep it warm I had to hold it.
Neither is her foot small, but it is an
honest foot-a foot light enough and step
true enough to dash the dew from heather
flowers; foot eloquent not like Cressidas,
but eloquent of purity; foot to twirl in
any schOttische or cOtillion, ''brent new
frae France" and foot to cut the pigeon
wing OF tread the maZes of the reel. or eX-
ecute the shuttle of the Irish jig. No, it is
not small, but its proportions are 50 ex-
quisitely exact that they are earnest of the
glorious and shapely rotundity above that
scOrns the aid of ligature or suspender to
keep the stocking in place-a rotundity
that PraXitiles could not have reproduced
in marble; that would have added charm
to Poe's imaginings of the strawberries and
the fountains of Arnheim. whose sylphs
and naiads were not so richly endowed.
Nor has her education been negec ted.
She was at Staunton year or so. and her
fathers library contains some sterling
looks, as do nearly every home in old Vir-
ginia. There is piano. too, and the Vir-
GINA girl is perhaps at her best when, with
voice like nghtingale's and eyes like
Hebe's, she sings with the accompaniment
the simple ballads her grandmother sang
when Dollie Madison was where frankie
Cleveland is now. But | can't go on, and
am sorry that l began.